


Hunted

by straightforwardly



Category: A Redtail's Dream (Webcomic)
Genre: Gen, Nighttime, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-22
Updated: 2017-10-22
Packaged: 2019-01-21 06:48:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12451871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/straightforwardly/pseuds/straightforwardly
Summary: The forest is strange that night.





	Hunted

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Burning_Nightingale](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Burning_Nightingale/gifts).



Two boys walked alone inside of a dark wood. Wet, blackened leaves coated the ground, broken up only by glimmers of starlight from the coal-dark sky. Bright bird eyes gleamed from the tree branches. Breath fogged in the silent air. 

“...Hey, Hannu?”

The question came in a puff of hot air against the back of his neck. Ville, walking at his heels. Hannu looked straight ahead, his hands shoved deep into the pockets of his coat. “What?”

Ville’s voice trembled. “A-are we going to be heading home soon?”

“Why?”

“D-didn’t you hear what Jonna and Joona were talking about? About those rumors about how there’s been some strange _thing_ in the forest lately?”

“I try not to listen to anything they say if I can help it,” said Hannu drily.

“But—”

Hannu sighed. “It’s probably just some bullshit they made up to scare you. Don’t worry so much about it.”

“They wouldn’t do that!”

Hannu gave him a look from over his shoulder. 

“...Okay, maybe they would. But that doesn’t mean they’re lying about this! Don’t you think it feels _weird_ tonight?”

The utter stillness all around them. The silence. Not even a single _hoot_ echoed through the forest, though he could see dozens of eyes glinting through the branches. 

“No,” Hannu lied. 

Even as he said it, he started angling his feet in the direction of home. But before he’d taken more than two steps, Ville stiffened, grabbing at Hannu’s arm. 

“Did you hear that?”

“No,” Hannu repeated automatically. Not technically a lie, this time. He really hadn’t _heard_ anything. Though… His eyes scanned the gaps between the trees, searching. Had something moved? He couldn’t tell; the shadows seemed to have grown deeper without his noticing. “It’s just your imagination. Come on. Let’s keep moving.”

His stride lengthened, and Ville hurried after. 

The minutes passed. Only the sound of their feet slapping against the wet leaves echoed around them—that, and the sound of Ville’s increasingly heavy breath as he struggled to keep up with Hannu’s longer legs. No creaking branches. No critters rustling in the undergrowth. Hannu listened closely, but told himself that it didn’t mean anything. Forests were sometimes weird at night. That’s just how they were. 

Ville still hadn’t let go of Hannu’s arm. Hannu allowed him to hold on. 

Not much further. Maybe ten minutes now, before they reached the edge of the forest. No more than fifteen before they were home again. Hannu noticed that his shoulders had raised, and he forced them to relax again. This was dumb. He wasn’t going to let whatever story the twins had fed to Ville get to him.

Those final minutes seemed to stretch on forever. Once, his foot sank into a particularly muddy patch of the ground, and the delay it caused felt unending, though it numbered only in seconds. His brief grunt of effort rang through the silent trees, and Ville’s head jerked up, staring back towards the direction from which they’d come. Hannu tugged him forward; they continued on. 

When the first stirrings of streetlights began shining through the trees, Hannu let out a soft breath. Without speaking a word to one another, the two of them began to move even faster, until they’d broken out from the trees and stood once more under the light of the moon, the familiar sight of their village filling their eyes. An undefined pressure seemed to lift from his shoulders.

“There,” Hannu said, his voice curling into a satisfied tone. “I told you there wasn’t anything to be worried about.”

Ville gave him a disbelieving look. “You were just as scared as I was!”

“Don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Ville responded with a protest, and their conversation drifted light and easy through the air, each word pushing the strangeness of the forest further and further away. 

But as they reached the road, Hannu found himself looking back one more time at the forest. For a moment, he thought he saw an immense form, pacing just behind the boundary of the trees. 

“Hannu?”

He tore himself away. “It’s nothing.” He took a deep breath of the cool night air, and shoved his hands back into his pockets. He repeated it to himself, too. It was nothing. Only tricks played by shadows. “Let’s go home.”


End file.
